Because bouncing is what tiggers do best

Month: April 2017

I read the last comment on my blog. Then I read the post. Then I copied paragraphs of the post and searched them online. My post was the first result.

Crap.

I wrote it. It’s tone is so unlike my own.

Well, it’s unlike my own now. It’s from my days before mood stabilizers and anti-depressants.

Did I write it for E, who less than a year later would break up with me? But we weren’t even officially a couple. Did I write it for the Korean boy that broke my heart, married some other woman, and I have never seen since? More likely.

But perhaps not. The other love letters were to myself. My unloved self, aching for affection. As through the mouth of the dramatic, romantic lover I wanted and as of yet have never found.

And it is powerfully intense. The writing of one not yet under the stupor of the artificial deadening produced by drugs. Bipolar is the clinic diagnosis.

The drugs have lessen the roller-coaster, but never prevented it’s descent. Depression still comes. Joy does not. And obviously creativity has died. I didn’t even recognize the piece as my own.

My fear in 2006 was that psychiatric treatment would change me. I resisted for 6 years until a suicidal depression that stole my waking hours, extra pounds, and all possibility of happiness. Then I crawled towards anything that could save me, including therapy and medicine.

Now 5 years later, the evidence is in. I have been changed so thoroughly I can’t recognize myself. It’s a bit troubling as I have traded that intensity and creativity for periods of low energy, neutrality, and mediocrity. Only lapses in the reoccurring suicidal depression that causes tears and confines me to bed. So, I have lost heights to prevent valleys that yet I still travel. I quit writing. Maybe I have made a horrible mistake.

I might be an incurable idiot. The first guy I fell in love with awful. For almost a year after he married someone else, I still missed him. I was severely depressed, lost a lot weight (so I looked great), and still cried almost daily. I hardly could get out of bed and couldn’t work. I was miserable and couldn’t control my feelings and thoughts at night when I tried to sleep.So, being an incurable idiot, I finally decided to start dating. It was something to do. I got out of the house, hung out with someone I knew was interested in me, and usually got a free meal so I didn’t need to buy groceries at all. I had plenty of time because I had no friends nor a job. Finally I met someone I felt comfortable with. He wasn’t serious about me and as an incurable idiot, I thought it was a good idea to try to change his mind. I barely considered that it might be a bad idea to chase a guy I barely knew. But with him, I forgot the first guy. With him, I was sometimes euphoric and sometimes miserable. I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. Within a year, we broke up. He was willing to be friends but I couldn’t accept that. After all, I couldn’t imagine dating anyone else. I was awful and he had to quit communicating with me entirely. Again, I was severely depressed. Again I lost weight. Again, I cried almost daily. The crying in which you lose your breath and periodically can’t make a sound. And again for almost a year, I didn’t get over this feeling. I dated for a while, eventually I didn’t think about him everyday or cry all the time. I spent time with friends and was cheerful again. But periodically, depression would hit me all over again. I still missed him. I couldn’t help but compare other guys to him. It’s idiotic and unfair. I remember him selective, everyone is an unique person, and I can’t rely on my momentary feelings as a rational judge of an relationship. But I never felt as happy with anyone else. I try to accept that. It’s been four years. When we broke up, he said maybe we could get back together. A friend admitted she once said that to get a clingy, emotionally unstable boyfriend so he’d let go of the relationship at the time. She knew she never would want to date him again. As an incurable idiot I still held out hope he’d come back or talk to me. Today, I miss him. At times, for months, I don’t even think about him. However, I’ve realized with big changes in my life, I miss him all over again. It hurts not to be able to talk with him. I wonder what his life has brought him. I still compare the happiness I felt just being next to him to all the guys I never feel that way about. As an incurable idiot, I still, after all these years, want to be a couple again. Even though we broke up for reasons that haven’t changed. And I was miserable at times. And no one around us thought we were a lasting match. And he never felt the way I did about him. Or so I believed. Rationally I know we will never talk or see each other again. It is the reality and it is for the best. But today I miss him overwhelmingly and I am crying. Again. And I wonder, “Will I ever stop having this horrible feeling about him”

Changing years of negative feelings and thoughts into positive ones is difficult.

Maybe if I wrote what I was grateful for each day.

Maybe if I wrote what I enjoyed each day.

Maybe if I thanked someone each day.

Maybe if I looked at pictures to remind myself of happier times.

But I struggle to find genuine gratitude. I struggle to feel contentment instead of pain or worry. I struggle to remember the past that wasn’t hurtful. I struggle not to cry when I remember all the people who used to be in my life now that I feel so isolated and lonely.

Maybe I just don’t want to try because I can’t believe it can be done. Maybe depression is all there can be.